Unpacking and preparing CW San Diego ink cartridges for use

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 9 August 2010 | View Comments

This tutorial covers a topic about which we receive at least one phone call a week.

Our ink cartridges are packaged to prevent damage to the print head and to prevent the print head from drying out from contact with the air. Since we don’t have the equipment on-hand to vacuum pack our cartridges like the original manufacturers do, we use tape and clips to achieve the same results.

1. Packaged ink cartridges

1. In the first image you see the cartridges as they appear right out of the box. They are heat sealed in plastic to reduce the amount of air to which they are exposed. They are also taped across the print head and the color cartridge is in a clip. These are more visible in a later image.

2. With the plastic removed

2. With the plastic wrap removed the clip on the color cartridge is more visible. After removing the plastic wrap you’re ready to remove the clip and tape.

3. Showing the tape and clip on the print head

3. This is a reverse view of the cartridges clearly showing the clip and tape that need to be removed prior to installing them in your printer.

We always tape the print heads on black ink cartridges but don’t always tape the color cartridges. When we use a clip there’s not any need to use the tape since both perform the same function. So you’ll always need to remove the tape from a black ink cartridge but on a color cartridge you may only encounter a clip.

4. Clip and tape removed

4. Here the clip and tape have been removed. The clip on the color cartridge has a thumb tab that helps in removing the clip. Set the cartridge on a solid surface as shown and push the thumb tab away from the cartridge. It should pop off as seen in image #4. You can also see in this picture that the blue tape has been removed from the black ink cartridge. Pulling on the red tab will remove the tape. This is a very light-adhesive tape and should never be replaced with ordinary Scotch-brand tape as that tape leaves an adhesive residue that will affect the performance of the cartridge and may even cause the print head to stick to the paper as it passes over the page it’s printing on.

5. Tape and clip fully removed

5. Here the tape and clip have been completely removed. The tape not only prevents air from reaching the actual print head (see image #6) but also protects the electronic strip on the front of the cartridge. The “electronics” is that strip of copper that runs from the front of the cartridge down and around to the print head. Embedded in this strip are tiny wires that carry the electric signals from the contact points (the little dots in image #5) to the print head. The contact points match the contact points on the printer and deliver the signals that tell the cartridge where to put the ink and in what amount. If that strip is damaged or removed the cartridge will no longer function. This strip should not be touched as fingerprint oil will cause the metal to corrode over time.

At this point the cartridges are ready to be put into the printer. Keep the clip. It can be used to remove and store the color cartridge should you need to do so, as well as transporting the cartridge back to the store for recycling. We do reuse the clips.

6. The print head portion of the cartridge

6. Here you can see the bottom of the cartridge and the actual print head. This is what’s responsible for putting the ink on the paper. Make sure not to rest the print head on any surface that can be damaged by ink and don’t touch the print head with your bare hands. This image also shows how the light-adhesive tape is used to keep the print head protected from contact and exposure to the air.

Two points I’d like to stress from the information above.

1. Do not touch the copper strip that contains the electronic wires and surrounds the print head.
2. Do not replace the light-adhesive tape with normal tape of any kind. Standard adhesive tape residue will damage the cartridge.

As always, should you have any questions or comments please call us at 858-581-9191 or email us, cwsandiego.com

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Power Cycling Hardware

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 12 July 2010 | View Comments

When I worked on help desks we frequently advised people to power cycle their hardware and see if that corrected the particular problem they were experiencing. We offered that advice so often that some folks accused us of using that as “busy work”, a tactic to get people off the phone and out of our hair.

That wasn’t, and isn’t, the case. Power cycling performs a vital function. It clears out errors and corruption that can occur in volatile memory, memory which requires power in order to store data. Once power is shut off to volatile memory the data it is storing is lost.

Examples of volatile memory configurations

Most single-function devices like printers, routers and modems have volatile memory chips. This short-term memory stores information relating to start-up errors, cartridge status and machine readiness.

When a device is power cycled it clears out all the data in volatile memory; a power cycle is similar to a reboot of the operating system.

Occasionally a print job sent by the computer becomes corrupted en route and once stored in the printer’s volatile memory refuses to allow another print job to be completed. The first step in fixing this issue is to open Printers and Faxes in the Control Panel (Windows XP, Vista, 7), select your printer and choose the option that deletes or clears the print queue. All too often this accomplishes nothing.

The next step would be to power cycle the printer. This should clear all the pending print jobs from memory and return the printer to a ready-to-print status.

A power cycle can be accomplished in two ways. You can simply turn the device off with its power switch, wait 15-30 seconds, then turn its power back on. This works in most devices that do not have internal batteries. The more effective way to power cycle any device is to first turn off the power with its switch then unplug the device from its supply of electricity. This cuts off all power to the device so that even things like computers, TVs and some printers that have an internal battery will shut completely down. Wait up to a minute before plugging the device back in and powering it up.

Just as most computer experts will suggest the occasional full reboot of your computer, the occasional power cycle of your electronic devices that run on A/C can help performance and clear out problems with the memory.

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Printing labels and stickers

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 8 July 2010 | View Comments

Printing labels and stickers on either a laserjet or inkjet printer is, for the most part, a rather straightforward process. However, one aspect of the process can cause irritation for you and potentially expensive damage to your printer if not taken into consideration.

Printing out your own address labels, identifying labels and art stickers has become very popular. Microsoft Word makes the process even easier by including many preset templates for labels and stickers from major companies like Avery. You don’t have to worry about setting margins or dimensions yourself. Just select the item number of the label sheet you’re using and the printer will make all the adjustments for you.

The part of the process that is rarely considered but frequently causes problems is obvious once you conceptualize the printing process on both types of printer.

On an inkjet printer the paper typically feeds in from either a slot on top of the printer or a tray on the lower front. It travels in one direction through the printer past the printheads then makes a sharp turn to finish the paper path and exit. When it makes that sharp turn labels have a tendency to peal off the paper backing and stick to the feed rollers or interior of the printer.

Labels present a different problem when being printed on a laser printer.

See that green square labeled “fuser” that the paper passes right after the toner is deposited? That is essentially a heating element. It’s a hot roller that bonds the toner to the paper. Heat and adhesive don’t usually get along well together. If you’re printing a sheet of labels they tend to curl up when passing the fuser roller. At that point they can easily stick to the fuser. Once they stick to the fuser they are nearly impossible to remove without causing damage to the fuser roller. Either way, once coated with labels the fuser roller is useless. Replacing the fuser assembly can cost $150 or more and often requires a technician to disassemble and reassemble the printer. Because the medium being imprinted must pass the fuser roller in order for the toner to be completely sealed onto it, we don’t generally recommend printing labels or stickers on a laserjet printer.

There’s no heat involved in inkjet printing, so the only issue we need to resolve is that hard turn inside the printer. Thankfully the majority of printer manufacturers have provided a way to print labels and stickers, as well as heavy card stock, without the needing to make the medium you’re using commit that sharp turn.

Look on the back side of your printer and locate a removable panel similar to the ones in these images.

With this panel removed the card stock or label sheet will stay flat passing the printheads and be expelled out the back of the printer. Since it eliminates the need for the paper to make a sharp turn it also eliminates the risk of labels coming loose from the backing sheet. This pass-through also allows you to print on heavy stock without bending it.

To print in this manner doesn’t require any special settings in the printer or computer. All it requires is sufficient space behind your printer for the printed page of labels to feed out the back. Remember, there’s no paper catcher back there, so you’ll need to grab each sheet as it feeds through by hand. A small price to pay for not having to peel stickers off your printer’s rollers or fuser.

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Ink-saving tips

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 3 May 2010 | View Comments

Even though our customers are already saving money buy shopping at CW San Diego for their ink and toner needs, there’s always more we all could be doing to reduce our use of ink and toner. Every so often we like to share tips and tricks we come across that help us do that.

Makeuseof.com offers these suggestions:

Print only what you need. Don’t print a whole book, if you’re only interested in a few paragraphs. Don’t print the graphics, if you’re only interested in the text and vice versa.

If you’re printing a piece of text for proofreading, you may not need to print the pictures. In Word you can make use of the print option “draft output”, which prints a fast and low-quality draft copy without images. Go to >file >print. This will open the print menu. In the bottom left click >options and check >draft output. Then go ahead and select the printer. But make sure it’s fine tuned according to the tips listed below.

The right settings are essential and will save you the most when done right. Instead of manually choosing “low quality” settings for each print job (i.e. all the time), you should make “low quality” the default. Hence you’ll have to make “high quality” settings manually, which will make you choose them only when required (i.e. rarely).

First of all, take note of the layout options you have. You may be able to print several pages on a single piece of paper or you may be able to print on both sides of a paper. Both options can save a ton of ink/toner and even paper. Please remember that if you change settings here, every print job will be printed like this per default. So keep in mind the options you have here for those special cases.

On some printers you can reduce the graphic resolution. This option is usually found under >advanced settings. 300 dpi (dots per inch) are usually sufficient for most purposes. Besides, regular paper can’t handle very high resolutions anyways. So applying a high resolution only makes sense when you’re using high quality photo paper.

In general, inkjet printers require a steady stream of electricity. Now if you completely disconnect your inkjet printer from electricity, for example by using a power strip that can be switched off, the printer will go through a cleaning cycle once electricity is back. If repeated on a daily basis, this procedure not only costs energy, but also tons of ink.

To save energy, turn your printer on only when you need it! And to keep the ink from drying out, turn the printer off manually. Don’t use the power strip! Using the manual on/off button activates a program and the printer will properly “park” the ink cartridges. In the park position the ink is protected from drying out quickly. (Read all their tips at makeuseof.com)

5 Start Support offers a few less common, general purpose tips:

Ensure that the tape that seals the cartridge ink port is removed prior to installing the cartridge.

Use the printer’s own self-test, according to the manufacturer’s recommendation. If it fails, you have verified that the problem is within the printer. If the print head is not moving at all, the transport motor may have failed.

If the printer that you are using is not set as the default printer in Windows or the printer driver is not installed, the printer may print garbled characters. You may also receive errors when you attempt to print from applications.

If the printer passes the self-test, try a test print using the Print Screen capability within DOS. If the Print Screen fails, you know the problem is in the relationship between the printer and the computer. Inspect the cable and the cable connections. Replacing the cable with a known good cable is worth trying since cables are so frequently the source of printer problems. Cables can fail with broken wires, loose or broken pins, or incorrect pin-outs.

The message “out of paper” is sometimes erroneously reported when there is plenty of paper, and can indicate a physical problem with the printer.

If the printer port is not properly identified in CMOS, the printer may not function properly and you may receive errors when trying to print. Check your User’s Guide on how to enter CMOS. Once in the Setup utility, locate the LPT1 settings. The address setting for the LPT1 port should be 3BCh or 378h depending on what kind of video card you have. The IRQ setting for the port should be 7 and LPT1 should be enabled in order for the printer to print correctly. (More tips at 5starsupport.com)

That last tip is especially relevant if you are using a parallel-port cable to connect your printer to your computer. USB and Firewire connected printers should be recognized by the operating system without making you dig through your IRQ settings.

And that tip about removing the tape from the cartridge print head? We must get at least one call a week on that exact topic. It’s an easy mistake to make if you’re in a hurry or not used to installing cartridges.

Do you have any tips or tricks you’d like to pass along to our readers? Please include them in a comment to this article or email us at CW San Diego.

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Delete fonts to free up hard drive space

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 1 April 2010 | View Comments

Modern hard drives offer capacities in the hundreds of gigabytes. Yet we still manage to fill them up with pictures, videos and music, documents and applications. Remember when we thought, “Wow, 20GB. I’ll never use all that space”? Now we buy a computer with a 500GB hard drive and soon we’re shopping for another one, or a 1TB drive to replace it with.

But not all that space is being filled up with things we add to the operating system. Some of that space is being used by the system itself to store items we may never use. Fonts, for instance.

In most versions of Windows fonts are stored in the System folder on your C: drive. Versions of Windows before XP were limited to storing around 1000 fonts. The most current version of Windows ships with over 1000 fonts just for non-Latin languages alone. That requires a rather substantial amount of storage space on your hard drive, space you may prefer to use for other purposes.

More fonts are added almost every time you install a word processing or web design program. Some Adobe programs install hundreds of additional fonts. A web designer or professional writer might have a use for many of those special and fancy fonts. For the rest of us they are just space hogs.

There are advantages to having a robust collection of fonts available to your computer. Very few people I know change the default setting in their browser to, “Force web pages to use my fonts”. Most of us prefer to see a web page as it was designed with the designer’s choice of fonts and colors.

Still, having thousands of fonts on your computer can become too much of a good thing.

Before you decide to dig into your font folder and start deleting fonts, there are some things to keep in mind.

Some fonts are essential to your system. You do not want to delete commonly used fonts like Arial and its family of derivative fonts, Courier, Helvetica, Microsoft Sans Serif, Verdana or Tahoma. Your computer will become unusable if you delete system fonts. Do not delete any fonts your browser uses. And when in doubt do not toss it out.

Still, you’ll no doubt find a rather large number of fonts that you have never used and never even knew were installed on your computer. The safest way to find out if a font is essential or unnecessary is to create a new folder in My Documents called “Font backups” and instead of deleting fonts right away, drag them from your System/Fonts folder to this new one. If after a week or so you haven’t noticed any problems caused by the absence of those fonts, burn that folder to a disk (just in case you ever want to reinstall them for any reason) then delete the “Font backups” folder.

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Quick Tip: Enjoy your Desktop

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 24 February 2010 | View Comments

Most of us who spend a fair amount of time working on a computer appreciate our desktop. We decorate it with a picture of our kids, our significant other or maybe just an image that relaxes us when we aren’t working.

Where's Waldo?

Then we start adding shortcuts to programs and websites, installed programs install an icon on the desktop and soon our image is buried beneath a bunch of distracting images. When there’s no organization to the desktop shortcuts it often takes longer to find the icon you want there than it would be to simply open the Start menu.

Here’s a tip that I’ve used for quite a while that both frees up your desktop image and makes finding program shortcuts easier and quicker.

The first step is to right-click on the desktop and choose View, then uncheck the option to Show Desktop Icons.

Now you have an uncluttered view of your desktop.

Next, right-click on any open space on the taskbar (to the right of the Windows Start button), select Toolbars and select Desktop.

Now you have a pop-up menu of every icons and its associated program on the taskbar.

One last step adds a degree of organization to your Desktop menu.I’ll use my personal method as an example. You can organize your menu to meet your needs.

Using Windows Explorer, I open the Desktop folder. I right-click anywhere in the window and select New then select Folder (do not select NewFolder in the first window). I then create folders for Apps, System, Games, Office, Reference and so forth. Finally I left-click on each icon and drag it to an appropriate folder.

Being more organized increases efficiency. Being able to enjoy your desktop image may relieve stress. I’d say either of those is a good reason to get rid of your disorganized desktop today.

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Troubleshooting tips for refilled ink cartridges

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 10 February 2010 | View Comments

Image via Wikipedia

Reusing ink cartridges benefits both the environment and your pocketbook, but there can occasionally be an issue with a reused cartridge that causes it to not give out ink or fail to be noticed by your printer.

The following tips are generic and may not apply to your particular printer. If the cartridges you purchase from us are not performing to your expectations and the following suggestions either don’t work or don’t apply, please call us for specific solutions to your problem.

“My printer says the cartridge is low on ink or empty when I first put it in.”

Some printers are able to detect a cartridge that has been in another printer. This ability is provided by the software in the printer and cannot generally be over-ridden. The electronics on the reused cartridge isn’t resetting the page counter in the printer, and that page counter is the only way the printer has to know how much ink the cartridge contains. You can usually ignore these warnings of low or no ink and print normally. You will have to monitor the quality of your prints to know when the ink cartridge is running low since the printer won’t warn you. To dismiss these warnings, click the “OK” button until the dialog box goes away. Sometimes checking the “Don’t display this dialog again” option in the warning window will prevent the printer from popping up the same warning every time you start to print.

“My cartridge seems to have dried out and won’t print properly even though I’m sure there’s still ink in it.”

The first thing to do in these cases is to run the printer’s built-in cleaning process. You shouldn’t run it more than once as it uses a lot of ink. If that doesn’t produced the desired result, take a paper towel and slightly dampen it and place it on a surface that won’t be discolored or damaged by ink. Tile is a good surface. Hold the cartridge with the print head against the paper towel for about a minute. Since water is a larger molecule than ink, you should start to see a bloom of ink form around the print head. This is the water wicking out the ink. Usually this is enough to moisten the print head and get the ink flowing again if the only problem was ink dried on the print head. If the cartridge still isn’t printing correctly, bring it back to us and we’ll either fix or replace it.

“I bought the right cartridge for my printer but it doesn’t fit.”

We get a phone call like this about once a week; it’s not as rare a problem as you might expect. The usual cause is the failure to remove the tape and/or clip from the cartridge prior to installation. We use a very light adhesive tape over the printhead  on black inkjet cartridges to protect them from damage or even the casual touch and we combine the tape with a plastic clip on color cartridges. The clip is intended to prevent color mixing at the printhead and to keep air from getting into the printhead. When removing the tape, be sure to only remove the light adhesive tape. Do not attempt to remove the brass electronics strip that constitutes the printhead. This will guarantee the cartridge can never be used again. We like to say that if you can’t remove the tape with your fingers, you’re probably trying to remove the wrong thing. Pliers are not required to remove the tape.

“My photos look dull using your cartridges.”

First, make sure you aren’t printing photos in “draft” mode. Check the settings in “printer properties” and be sure you have “Best” or “Photo” selected for the print quality. Second, for the best possible results using our cartridges, be sure you’re using the photo paper recommended by your printer’s manufacturer. Inks are formulated to work with certain types of photo paper. Saturation and drying time are particular to the recommended paper. Printing photos on ordinary copy paper will result in dull colors and saturated paper.

For the very best results when printing very important photos, we recommend you use the manufacturer’s paper and ink. Because we have to manufacture our ink using different components than the OEM ink to avoid legal complications, we cannot make the same claims as the manufacturers do about photo quality and longevity. Our inks are not archival quality inks, and that, usually combined with acid-free paper, is required to attain the promises made by the manufacturers as to photo quality and their claims that their ink won’t fade for 100 years.

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Caring for your cartridges

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 21 January 2010 | View Comments

Caring for your laser cartridge:

• Leave it in its packaging until you’re ready to install it in your printer
• Do not touch the drum or rollers with bare hands
• Do not store laser cartridges where they’ll be subjected to high humidity or direct sunlight
• Do not drop cartridge
• Store laser cartridges flat if at all possible

Caring for your ink cartridges:

• Leave cartridges packaged until you’re ready to install them in your printer
• Remove only the plastic clip and light-adhesive tape covering the print head. Do not remove the brass strip
• Do not touch the brass strip or the printhead with bare hands
• Store ink cartridges away from heat and direct sunlight. Ink, being a liquid, can dry and/or evaporate
• Store ink cartridges in an upright position with the label on top
• Ink tanks (Epson, Canon, HP 02) should be replaced as soon as possible. Leaving the top of the printhead exposed can lead to air getting into the printhead or the ink drying inside, both of which can damage the printhead
• Bring in cartridges for refilling as soon as possible. The longer they sit empty, the more likely the ink left inside will dry and make refilling more difficult
• On empty color ink cartridges, replace the plastic clip that came with it. This will help keep the printhead from drying out

And finally, don’t throw away any ink or laser cartridge. Even if you don’t purchase your cartridges from us we’ll gladly recycle your empty cartridges for you.

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Improve network speed with DNS

Posted in: Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 6 January 2010 | View Comments

If you have a home or office network you have probably noticed that on occasion a webpage will load slowly or you may even get a time-out message in your browser. Sometimes this may be caused by an overload of internet traffic on a particularly busy server, but other times it is most likely the result of a poorly configured DNS setting in your router.

If you’re not sure what this is all about, DNS (Domain Name Servers) are servers scattered throughout the world whose job it is to translate human readable domain addresses into machine readable addresses. In the early days of the internet, to reach google.com you would have to type 64.233.183.106 into the address window of the browser. Every website had its own particular address, and they still do. Web servers, the computers where webpages are stored and “served” to you and I, cannot understand words, only numbers. Web servers have no idea what yahoo.com means, but they know where 69.147.114.224 is. You can prove this by typing 69.147.114.224 into the address window of your browser. Domain Name Servers take 69.147.114.224 and translate that into yahoo.com strictly for the benefit of us humans. Comodo explains the purpose and functionality of DNS well here.

In a router there’s a setting for DNS. Usually the default settings will be those of your ISP (Internet Service Provider) like Cox or AT&T, but they may also be whatever default DNS addresses the manufacturer chooses to use.

Whenever you click a link or type an address into a browser, the first stop for that electronic packet is a DNS server (I know, that’s redundant). The server will translate the typed address into a machine readable one. If that DNS server is too far away from you, you’ll notice the connection is very slow or may even time out. So the ideal situation is to have the DNS listings in your router be servers as close to you as possible. You do not have to use those provided with your router or by your ISP. There are several alternatives, one of which may speed up your browsing because it’s closer to you.

Google has entered the DNS provider ranks with their Public DNS, 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Needless to say this has raised security concerns over Google having access to our searches and web browsing.

Comodo offers their SecureDNS (156.154.70.22 and 156.154.71.22) and OpenDNS has been around for a while (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220).

To determine which DNS server is fastest at your location may I recommend Steve Gibson’s Domain Name Speed Benchmark.

Font selection effects ink conservation

Posted in: Conservation, Recycling, Tips & Tricks, blog by Jack on 19 December 2009 | View Comments

Did you ever think that the font you select to print with could effect the number of pages a cartridge can deliver?

Obviously printing a great deal of bold characters on a page will use more ink, but it is also true that the font you use may consume more ink than another font.

Matt Robinson, in collaboration with Tom Wrigglesworth, found a unique way to illustrate the amount of ink each popular font uses. Granted, they are using ink pens to conduct their experiment, but the results are equally applicable to inkjet printing.

A selection of the most commonly used typefaces were compared for how economical they are with the amount of ink which they use at the same point size. Large scale renditions of the typefaces were drawn out with ballpoint pens, allowing the remaining ink levels to display the ink efficiency of each typeface. (Source-matthewrobinson.com)

Click through for images.

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